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 Plan
Highlights Life Sciences in LA Region
October 20, 2003
By
Carl Engle, Monitor Group
A groundbreaking
effort by the Office of the Governor, the life sciences industry
and research institutions has generated a
strategic plan, Taking
Action for Tomorrow: Los Angeles Region Life Sciences Strategic
Action Plan, for
growing the highly attractive life sciences industry in the Los
Angeles Region. The key theme that has surfaced? The region contains
an "embarrassment of riches" in research capabilities
in life sciences related fields, a talented labor pool, and strong
anchor companies. However, it has yet to produce a coordinated,
strategic effort to harness these riches and tap into its full potential
to become a world-leader in the commercialization of life-improving
and life-saving technologies. Until now.
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Taking
Action for Tomorrow:
Los
Angeles Region Life Sciences
Strategic Action Plan
Excerpt
by Rohit Shukla
There
is a high degree of dissatisfaction among entrepreneurs
- creators of wealth and opportunity - with the
entrepreneurial environment for the Life Sciences
in the Southern California region. All of the
associated issues converge at the level of the
Life Sciences community: the lack of spin-off
and spinout activity in the region, the lack of
consistency (due to multiple jurisdictions) in
everything from incentives to workforce training,
the confusing chorus of voices that succeeds in
making us second-rate players with first-rate
assets. While 'superheroes' like Al Mann can and
do get started here, they are the exceptions that
prove the rule.
To
encourage spin-offs (and startups), which are
the lifeblood of a growing community, the leaders
in large companies must be committed to encouraging
ventures in areas complementary to their own,
and sometimes spun off (or out) from their own.
So long as our larger companies believe that encouraging
intrapreneurial ventures is a zero-sum game, and
then fail to develop their own spin-outs, we will
never succeed in building a wide and deep cluster
of companies in the field, whether in devices,
biotechnology, or services.
These
ventures also need a supportive infrastructure of organizations
in all parts of the region committed to training and exposure
to best business practices, forums for presentations of their
plans to committed investors (managed and driven by the most
motivated service professionals dedicated to building the
industry and their practices), industry roundtables, and an
awareness of the pieces of the industry pie that are scattered
throughout. If these forums and roundtables are consistent
in look and feel between all of the Life Sciences organizations,
more (and better) entrepreneurs (and even stealthy intrapreneurs)
will be forthcoming.
The
organizations also need to work together, again on a common
front, to tackle the maze of jurisdictional regulation that
threatens wealth creation and economic growth - whether on
big single issues like workers' compensation or on the plethora
of zoning and incentive packages available in the region.
And they need to incorporate the diverse workforce training
programs into a simple, easily accessible program for which
they can all take responsibility. A similar proposal in San
Diego is likely to pass, with BIOCOM being the managing organization.
The
point is this: Life Sciences organizations that
currently exist - especially membership organizations
- need to work together on a common set of priorities.
When this happens, the industry in the region
will then be truly able to represent itself as
a community.
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In a letter
addressed to the plan's audience, one of the region's leading entrepreneurs,
Al Mann, states, "This plan grew out of the Life
Sciences Summit in June and echoes the voices of more than 200
attendees. The energy of those participants testifies to an eagerness
to work together to do more to address the challenges and to create
actionable goals to ensure that, in the life sciences industry,
Los Angeles is the place to be."
In order to
draft a plan that provides actionable recommendations and truly
reflects the spirit of the life sciences industry in the region,
Monitor Group, a family of global strategic advisory services firms
with offices in Los Angeles, Palo Alto and San Francisco, interviewed
over 40 research, venture capitalist, biomedical, and biotechnology
executives from the six Los Angeles region counties (Los Angeles,
Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura). The
analysis also included input from breakout sessions held at the
Life
Sciences Summit in Los Angeles in June, 2003 and from a web-based
survey fielded to industry leaders and summit participants.
Among
the recommendations:
·
The region must create an efficient technology transfer
management process and build common physical space for
academic/industry partnerships in order to stimulate
the entrepreneurial environment.
· In collaboration with other regions and the
state, the Los Angeles Region must become a more business
friendly environment by creating targeted tax incentives
and simplifying the regulatory regime that hinders the
ability of companies to effectively compete and collaborate
on the global stage.
· Industry, academia, and government must work
more closely together to ensure that appropriate training
opportunities align with industry needs and future societal
demands.
· The life sciences community should be strengthened
through coordinated strategic efforts to create an environment
that can take full advantage of the region's unique
human, financial and knowledge assets.
"We
believe that the recommendations in the Los Angeles
Region Life Sciences Strategic Plan support a vigorous
and vital industry in the region and form the basis
for continued dialogue between government, industry
and academia," said Joan Chu, a partner in the
Monitor Group's Los Angeles Office and one of the leaders
of the action plan team.
The
report includes focused written contributions from key
leaders including Al Mann, Chairman, Southern California
Biomedical Council; Ralph J. Cicerone, Chancellor, University
of California, Irvine; Steven B. Sample, President,
University of Southern California; and Rohit Shukla,
CEO of Larta. Other key industry leaders consulted for
the report include David Pyott, CEO of Allergan; Gary
Lazar, Managing Director, California Ventures, Inc.;
and David L. Gollaher, President and CEO, California
Healthcare Institute.
Click
here to view full report
Carl Engle
is in the Monitor
Group's Los Angeles office and can be reached at 310 566 4400.
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